Entries tagged "environment"

I was delighted to be invited to go on a walk with Peter Gibbs for BBC Gardener's Question Time recently. We went for a potter around Petworth Park and tried not to disturb the fallow deer as they went about their rutting.
The programme is being broadcast on Radio 4 on Friday 24th October at 3pm and Sunday 26th October at 2pm. But if you missed those you can catch up from this page:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04lsxhc
It has always struck me that gardening and natural navigation with plants are…

I try not to let politics enter my mind too much when out walking, but sometimes it helps to be aware of some of the tinkering that the political animals are up to. In the interests of the environment farmers are discouraged from working the land right up to the edge of woodland. They can set some of this land aside, typically a strip up to 8m, and be compensated for it through the government's Entry Level Stewardship scheme. The farmers are finely tuned into what is and is not productive land, they know from experience the parts of their…

When talking about heat and wind in the context of chillies, there is a risk that we might start to think some very un-navigational thoughts...
... however, this is a risky business, so here are two jalapeno chillies. One lived its life in a south-facing greenhouse, the other lived near it, outside near a south-facing wall. They both received identical amounts of sunlight. They both grew in the same soil and received plenty of water. The only serious differences to their environments were the temperature and wind exposure.
It is not too hard…